\ THE 

I LIFE OF LOVE 



f . ... BY ... . 

j EVANGELIST RUSSELL. 

| Published by 

THE 

\ Preacher's Assistant, 

Chasm Palls, N. Y. 




. BY . . . 



Author of Be Filled With the Spirit," "The Palm 
Tree Christian" Etc., Etc 



Published by 
The Preacher's Assistant, 
Chasm Palls, N. Y. 



TWO COPIES 



«WN i 0 7899 



DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER. 



As I sit and think of mother, 

And the happy days gone by, 
Thoughts of mingled joy and sorrow 

Spring like streamlets from my eye. 
Joy, because God gave me mother, 

One of Heaven's jewels rare; 
Sorrow too, because when lonely 

I so need her tender care. 
Mother toiled and prayed and suffered. 

Mother sacrificed her health, 
That her boys might be true heroes 

And fall heirs to heaven's wealth. 



Thought runs back o'er thirty summers 

To that mom in spring time gay, 
When your other God-stamped "shilling" 

Went to shine in endless day. 
Towering monuments of marble 

Mark the spots where heroes won; 
But dear Mother's unknown victories, 

God rewardsbeyond the sun. 

Dry your weeping eyes my mother, 
Soon will dawn a brighter day; 

Opening graves and coming loved ones 
Then shall chase the night away. 

We are waiting— we are watch ing 
For the coming of His feet; 

When with father, sisters, brothers 
And dear mother, we shall meet. 



Copyright 1899 

—BY — 

Rev. Walter Russell, B. A. 

j 



jr$6> z / t 



Preface. 



A chiliad of characters, stands before me, 
whose names it would give me great delight 
to mention. I feel towards them a great debt 
of gratitude. Space forbids me saying more 
than, to them "I am a debtor. -" If this mono- 
graphic message bears the fruitage, for 
which I have sowed and continually pray, my 
gracious benefactors, shall share in the 
crowns of rejoicing. My Saviour and I have 
walked, for a decade, in the sweet and un 



8 PREFACE. 

broken fellowship of the * 'Life of Love' ' and 
sincerely hope this testimony will carry 
great blessing to the hearts and lives of aU 
who may have the opportunity and dispos 
ition to read its pages. 

W R. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In compliance with a request, as the Au- 
thor's first friend, I write these few lines as 
an introduction to the following pages. Be- 
cause an intimate acquaintance with him has 
not only opened to me, wider views of spirit- 
ual and Divine things, but attested that there 
are heights and depths of God's love and pro- 
vision for man that are not generally appre- 
hended or manifested in the lives of believers. 
I owe it to a charge of heresy preferred 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

against him, while yet a student, for my first 
acquaintance with him. I had read in our lo- 
cal press that a certain Presbytery was pros- 
ecuting a charge of heresy against a student, 
named, Russell, and some time afterwards, I 
was at a prayermeeting conducted by a lady 
evangelist who was urging the Wesleyan doc- 
trine of "Entire Sanctification." A clergyman, 
who was present, at the close of the meeting 
enquired of her, if she knew a student, nam- 
ed, Russell, and she answered; "O yes, Ho 
knows more of God than any person I have 
ever met with." 

Strange thought I, that such a man should 
be charged with heresy, and harassed about 
his belief! So feeling that such men, best de- 
served the love and support of a Christian, I 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

wrote to comfort him, and advised him to 
stand firm to the grace that had been given 
him; and it seems that I was the first person 
who openly appreciated what God had 
wrought in and for him, hence he honors me, 
by calling me "Ms first Galatian 4: 15 friend, " 
but who are now counted by thousands of the 
most spiritual men and women, in Canada 
and the United States. In reply to my letter 
of comfort and encouragement, he gave me a 
short history of himself and of God's wonder* 
f ul dealings with him. I cannot do better 
than give the gist of his letter. 

Dear Mr. Pindlay, Glad to get your kind 
letter. It came just at the right time. It 
might be interesting for you to know the facts 
in the case. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

I felt the constraining call of God, to 
preach the Gospel, burning in my being and 
found the way opening to take the prepar- 
atory Arts Course in McGill University. Dur- 
ing the first summer I was sent to Manitoba 
"to prove the call" and found that although I 
was successful in securing $200 for the 
Missionary Society and popular, in securing 
large audiences, many of whom, came twelve 
miles to Church, I saw no sorrow for sin and 
no fulfillment of what the Master said "Hence- 
forth ye shall catch men." This state of 
affairs led me to the conclusion that some- 
thing was wrong. The next summer, the same 
society sent me to a field on the Upper Ottawa, 
with the same results and a heart full of dis- 
satisfaction. But the third year brought a 



INTRODUCTION. IS 

revolution, a regeneration a resurrection 
Once more the Missionary Society of the 
Presbyterian College sent me to another field 
I was a graduate of McGill and had completed 
the first year of the theological curriculum 
During the month of June, a revival season 
was going on in Bristol, Que, my old home 
And as I was within driving distance I went 
up. The Spirit of God was in the place though 
I knew Him not. 

Mrs. Gordon, of Aylmer spoke in the 
meeting. Her face shone like the shekinah of 
God, I saw it and said: "That woman enjoys 
something to which I am a stranger. " I was 
seized with a conviction that can never 
be told. In the af termeeting, many of my old 
schoolmates, and neighbors were moved and 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

sought the Cross and the Christ, I tried to 
lead them but could not, but Mrs. Gordon 
came and had them rejoicing in sins forgiven 
in a few moments. That settled the question, 
that I needed an anointing with the Holy 
Ghost. But I got no help. All summer I went 
about my work as though I were transparent 
glass, and all the world could see that I was 
not right with God. I preached old sermons 
and dragged through the season, of all men 
most miserable. The Autumn came. Just 
about a month before returning to the 
Seminary, Mr. D. J. Craig, a Spirit anoint- 
ed Presbyterian Elder, said: "Why dont you 
have revival meetings before going to college? 
It was quickly decided that it was a message 
from God. Rev. Eber Crummy, united with 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

us and the Methodists and the Presbyterians 
for the first time, in that community formed 
an Alliance to storm the citadels of sin. 

Without exception all the ministers for 
miles aroud came to our assistance. We invi- 
ted Mr. and Mrs. Gordon to help. O what days! 
They were days of heaven! Mr. Gordon is a 
lawyer, but kindly consented to come up and 
help on Sunday 

The first Sunday was for the Young 
missionary minister. Mr. Gordon spoke from 
Rom. 15: 29 and as that Spirit swayed mess- 
enger flashed the truth from the throne of 
God, O what pressure came upon my soul! 
The billows of fire surged about me and when 
I said "Yes to Jesus," my whole being was 
suffused with the power of the Holy Ghost 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

My body burned, my mind sparkled and my 
spirit was swept by the Pentecostal baptism. 
An unquenchable passion for the Glory of 
God and an insatiable desire to see sinners 
saved, became the undivided ambition and 
aspiration of my life. 

W. R. 

E^om that moment, though his experi- 
ence subjected him to be misunderstood, and 
I had almost said, persecuted, he became a 
flame of fire, and had wonderful power over 
an audience, far beyond what one could un- 
derstand to be due, to the weight of his dis- 
courses. I have seen an audience refuse to go 
home till midnight. I have seen him condemn- 
ed, insulted and abused, but getting permiss- 
ion from the person so treating him, to kneel 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

in prayer with him, that same person, before 
two minutes had elapsed, was all broken up 
and in tears, and when we rose, passionately 
clasping the evangelist's hands and blessing 
him. That old redeemed sinner soon found 
peace and is a living monument of the long 
sparing mercies of God. Wherever he has 
been, there is to be seen what wonderful 
things God has wrought through human 
agency. 

I believe that Mr. Russell's ministerial 
brethren in Canada, from whose ecclessias- 
tical connection, for the sake of peace, he had 
to sever himself, have undergone a blessed 
change of sentiment towards him- "his doc- 
trine" and experience- the Baptism with the 
Holy Ghost are no longer subjects of fear, 



suspicion and dread. But with some, if not 
with many of them, a matter of earnest, ex- 
pectancy and prayer. That these few pages 
may be the means of opening up a vista to 
the reader, of the illimitable and glorious 
privileges of the believer in Christ Jesus, as 
the God man Who came to save His people 
from their sins, is the wish, prayer and hope 
of the Author's friend. 

James Findiay, 

Beachburg, 

Ont, Canada, 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 



BY EVANGELIST RUSSELL* 




jf^OT even Paul who eclipsed Gamaliel 
and outshone Hillel, could have con 
ceived, and painted the seraphic picture con 
tained in the thirteenth chapter of first Cor 
inthians, had he not climbed the mystic 
ladder of faith, to the throbbing heart of God, 
and dipped his brush in the pigments of 
Spirit-illumined Revelation. 

Love has been called, "The Greatest 
Thing in the World.' ' It has been labelled, 



20 THE LIFE OF LOVE, 

"The Best Thing in the World. " Hosts of ad- 
venturers of faith and hope, have come from 
its depths and illimitable breadths, ladened 
with the richest spoil, but have no where 
found Pillars of Hercules, upon which to 
carve: "Ne plus ultra" — there is nothing 
beyond. With uncovered feet, a bowed head 
and a heart filled with one consuming desire, 
to glorify God and give a cup of blessing to 
the thirsty world, we send forth another 
carrier dove on the gold tipped wings of 
lova 

The 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians 
naturally divides itself into four great car- 
dinal divisions and we will look at them as 
defined by the architectural plan of the 
Revelator. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 21 

I. Competitors of Love. 

Not a few teachers of the "deep things 
of God" have fallen into the error, that the 
great Apostle is here and elsewhere belittling 
and berating that blessed category of envi- 
able qualifications to be found in the three 
opening verses of this love chapter. 

Such an idea is not in all his thought. He 
is well aware of the fact that man's tripartite 
nature, raised to the highest degree of de 
velopment, is the best medium, through 
which the Divine mind can convey His plans 
and purposes to the race. 

A body deficient in any of its members, 
organs or senses, limits the mind and the 
mind undeveloped in any of its faculties, lim 
its the Spirit. The psychical man sends his 



22 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

commerce down and through the highways 
of the senses; and the heaven born resources 
of the Spirit seek avenues and channels of 
outlet through the psychical man. 

We do not enhance the value of gold by 
calling iron mud, but by raising the baser 
metal to its highest value, in the form of a 
pen, putting it into the hands of a Milton to 
do more to emancipate an empire than the 
sword of a Cromwell. Then refining the gold 
seven times and transforming it into a regal 
crown, adorned with precious and priceless 
stones, give it the highest place on a mon- 
arch's brow before whose lustre the nations 
bow. 

Love will brook no substitute and Paul 
teaches us that the enumerated gifts as com- 
petitors of love are hopeless; as counsellors 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 23 

of love they are helpless; but as humble and 
obedient commissioners of love they are her- 
culean. 

a. Eloquent earnestness. "Man has no 
majesty like earnestness." Ones oratory 
may be characterized as reason made red hot 
with passion and his speeches as chain light- 
ning. He may throw the golden chain of ser- 
aphic eloquence around the enchanted aud- 
ience that hangs on the words that fall from 
his golden mouth, and sway the excited mul- 
titude like the unfettered storm bends and 
breaks the forests of the centuries and yet if 
he have not love, his impassioned eloquence, 
is like the discordant clanging of a tinkling 
cymbal. 

b. Foresight. "Though I have the gift of 



24 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

prophecy. " The wrecked remains of the God 
made prophetic faculty in man has, for six 
millenniums, been burning with an insatiable 
hunger to foresee — to pre-horizon the coming 
future. The click of the telegraphic appar- 
atus, is announcing to us now that a wonder- 
ful invention has been conceived in Austria, 
called the "Far seen," by which an object, 
with all its colors may be rendered visible 
though situated round the corner, by means 
of the transformation of light waves into 
electric waves. But such eagle-eyed perspi- 
cacity, without love is like a bat beating its 
way sightlessly amid the insufferable blaze of 
the meridian sun. 

c. Insight. "And understand all mys- 
teries/ ' It was Keplar that piloted science 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 25 

into the skies. He may be called the Colum- 
bus of Astronomy. When he was making his 
investigations of the planetary and stellar 
worlds and searching for the mystery of 
planetary motion, he made seventeen, before 
he made the eighteenth and successful ex- 
periment. He said: "I will suppose the paths 
of the planets to be an elipses. " This key fit- 
ted every ward of the hitherto stubborn lock 
and the door that had been shut for ages flew 
open and the Astronomer threw up his hands 
in ecstatic rapture and exclaimed: "O 
Almighty God, I am thinking thy thoughts 
after Thee." But this is but the broad aven- 
ue of approach to Our Father's House. The 
mysterious and nebulous hosts, that refuse 
their secrets to the most far reaching teles- 



26 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

cope, when explored and peopled by coming 
astronomical science, will still reveal in the 
ever widening and deepening beyond, a re- 
gion of mystery. 

We need not weary ourselves in the star 
sown fields of immensity. About us and be- 
neath us is mystery. "Who does not know it? 
Who does not stand with bated breath to hear 
the next discovery in the domain of mystery? 
This terrestrial home of ours is one gigantic 
Sphinx. Like the sage of all time it pro- 
pounds unending chains of the most perplex- 
ing riddles. Riddles that weary and wear out 
the longest-lived science. 

A few, of the general facts marks the 
geographical boundaries of our boasted sci- 
ences and philosophies. The stony crust, of 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 27 

the deepest mysteries has never received a 
blow, much less a fracture from the hammer 
of the investigator. Yet the Apostle is bold 
to declare that we may be able to solve all the 
mysteries and if we have not love we are 
nothing. 

d. Through- sight. ' 'And all knowledge. " 
The prognostic has failed, the epignostic 
shoots wide of the mark and what shall we 
hope for the diagnostic? 

Words fail us to express the gratitude 
and the sense of our indebtedness to the mas- 
ter minds that have invaded the atomic world, 
and brought to light its hidden treasures; the 
Bosios who have discovered and explored the 
catacombs; the Archaeologists whose spade 
has brought to our wondering vision the em- 



28 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

pires of the past; the sages who have inter- 
preted to us the sibyls of the sky. 

The mind of man has made successful 
attacks on three worlds. He has made a time 
table of the inanimate from the atom to the 
Alcyone. He has written the history of the 
lower animal world from the monad to the 
mammoth. And under the 'inspiration of the 
Almighty ' has registered the destiny of un- 
dying spirits from sinners doomed to saints 
redeemed that bow and burn before the 
throne of God. But although the alembic of 
the human mind can turn stars into astron- 
omy, atoms into chemistry, rocks into geol- 
ogy, plants into botany, colors into beauty 
and sounds into harmony, without love it is 
nothing. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 29 

e. Eye-sight. "Though I have ail faith so 
that I could remove mountains." There is an 
old addage "seeing is believing," that is not 
strictly true. But believing is seeing. Faith 
is a substantial thing. "Faith is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for." The enemies of 
Christ said at the crucifixion: "Let Him come 
down from the cross that we may see and be- 
lieve. " The child of God believes and before 
his vision Christ stands in all His splendor. 
Faith tastes the fruit before the blossom falls. 
Faith drinks from the fountain when sight 
wails mirage. Faith is clairaudient and 
hears the song of the birds of Paradise in the 
unhatched eggs. Faith is clairvoyant and 
sees the country without a cemetery and the 
system without a sun amid all the billowy 



30 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

sweep of death and wailing Jeremiads of woe 
and with all this, without a qualifying tone 
the peerless Apostle thunders 'without love I 
am nothing. ' 

f. Oversight. "Though I bestow all my 
goods to feed the poor.'' We cannot but ad- 
mire and commend the spirit of benevolence 
that has been manifested by large hearted 
men. The tangible response that springs from 
the sympathetic heart and material resources 
of the Christian nations, to help a fire swept 
city or a famine stricken people, cannot but 
beget in our hearts the deepest feelings of 
commendation. And at the same time it is 
possible for men to build, and fill and throw 
open to suffering humanity large store- 
houses of sujjply and be doubly destitute of 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 31 

the love that is born in the heart of the 
Eternal. 

g. Martyrdom. "And though I give my 
body to be burned" Is it too much to say that 
perhaps no martyr ever went to the stake 
with a bolder step and indifference to pain 7 
than characterized the stoical sternness with 
which Servetus faced the punishment of 
death for his faith or rather want of faith. 
How shall we estimate love? "Were all the 
world of parchment made" it would not be 
sufficiently voluminous in which to make an 
itemized inventory of love. The sun can be 
weighed by means of tides and by comparing 
the curvatures of the terrestrial and lunar 
orbits. "The philosopher sits with scales in 
hands as Homer says Jupiter did on Ida, to 



82 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

weigh the contending fates of Greece and 
Troy. He puts the earth into one scale and 
rolls the sun into the other. The earth flies 
aloft with tremendous precipitation. He 
throws in two worlds like ours-ten-one hun- 
dred-one thousand with scarcely better suc- 
cess. In a fit of impatience he throws all the 
earths he has into the capacious scallop. At 
last there is a see- sawing and an equipoise. 
With mingled curiosity and astonishment he 
counts his globes and finds he has three hun- 
dred and fifty two thousand." But put love 
on one scale and pile upon the other the 
countless constellations of stars and number- 
less galaxies of suns that sing and shine in 
the shoreless infinite, on the other and love 
will outweigh tehm and toss them to the four 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 33 

winds like the chaff of the summer threshing 
floor. 

II. Constituents of Love. 

It should not be forgotten that the 
word (agape) love is a word born within the 
breast of revealed religion. It occurs in the 
Septuagint (2 Samuel 13: 15; Canticles 2: 4; 
Jer. 2:2) but there is no trace of it in any 
heathen writer whatever, and as little in 
Philo or Josephus. The utmost they attain to 
is philanthropy and Philadelphia and the last 
never in any sense but as the love between 
brethren in blood. Steam has indeed made 
the race mechanically cosmopolitan and elect- 
ricity, geographically ubiquitous but love 
alone can make of all ranks and conditions of 
men, one blood and one tongue. 



84 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

Some time ago we found the following 
recipe for Golden Cake—1 cup of faith, 1 cup 
of zeal, 8 good resolutions, 1-2 cup of milk of 
human kindness, 1 teaspoonful of forbear- 
ance; flavor with the essence of humility, sea- 
son with the spice of wisdom and fruit of 
good works. Bake tkrough a life time in the 
oven of righteousness and cover with the 
frosting of purity. 

To live like Christ; to serve like Christ: 
to suffer like Christ; to love like Christ and to 
die like Christ we must have a character 
whose constituent parts correspond with the 
constituents of love. 

1. Long suffering. When we think of the 
power of God we usually think of creation, 
the whirl of suns on suns. But there is no 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 35 

proof of Divine power greater than His long 
suffering patience. Why does God not clean 
the earth and engulf the scenes of iniquity? 
Why does He not let loose a torrent of fire 
and sweep the Augean Stables into the 
Abyss? Why does the thunderbolt not smite 
the blasphemer? The flower sown carpet of 
earth, the pent up wrath of God and the sil- 
ent untorn heavens, under the feet and above 
the proud head of iniquity are the greatest 
) exhibition of power on this side the great 

white throne. It is God showing power over 
Himself — power over the Omnipotent. Law 
strikes to conquer, love suffers to conquer, 
"Evil for good is demon like; evil for evil is 
brute like; good for good is man like and good 
for evil is Christ-like. " Love is long-feelinged. 



86 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

Love suff ereth long. 

2. Kindness. It is just possible to suffer 
long and be flinty and hard — but "love suff- 
ers long and is kind. " Kindly. It is the feel- 
ing one has for his kin. When one member 
of the body suffers from a sudden wound — a 
thorn prick or severe laceration, the others 
fly to the rescue and begin to sympathize. It 
is to the mystical body of Christ what the re- 
markable science of telepathy is to the phy- 
sical body. It answers the question of what 
causes the strange feelings of sorrow and 
suffering, that frequently come over the soul 
of any one who is living in inseparable and vi- 
tal touch with the Lord. Some other member 
of Christ's body is under severe pressure, it 
may be a thousand miles distant and we 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 37 

share the burden and feel the pain by the way 
of our common Head. However we may re- 
gret many expressions of feeling and conduct 
and feel the stroke of rebuke or reproof when 
we meet our fellow men and are closeted with 
God, there never comes a discolor to the 
cheek, a tear to the eye or a twinge to the 
heart for being kind. 

3. Generosity. "Love envieth not,'* 
"Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous; but 
who is able to stand before envy." Love is 
not jealous. What gnawing heart burnings, 
multitudes of good people suffer! The mer- 
ciless spirit of envy, stung the enemies of 
our Lord into a blood thirsty rage, till like 
the sleuth hounds of hell, they panted for the 
life of the Saviour. The globules of envy are 



38 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

still in the blood of the race and the slightest 
wind of opposition is enough to toss the whole 
nature into billows of rage and lash the soul 
into seething seas of hate. It is like the dis- 
covery of a new world to find the whole being 
suffused with the love of God, and feel the 
throbbing heart beat of Infinite love for all 
the race from the gates of death to the High- 
lands of glory. 

4. Tenderness. "Is not rash;" is not vain- 
glorious. Weakness is always rough. Strength 
alone can be tender. God's mighty irresis- 
tible physical forces step with the majesty of 
the earthquake and at the same time with 
the silent softness of the falling dew. Perspir- 
ation is not inspiration and noise is not pow- 
er. Berating is not bestiring and it takes 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 39 

little or no grace, to say nothing about love, 
to berate and denounce. When the Revelator 
saw the sealed book, he wept and the elder 
said: "Weep not; behold the Lion of the tribe 
of Judah, the Root of David hath prevailed to 
open the book. " He looked for a lion and be- 
hold a lamb. It is the Little Lamb that shall 
yet subdue all things. Love makes us lamb 
like. "Behold I send you forth as lambs 
among wolves. " The lamb spirit like its Mas- 
ter, amid the malignant hate of wicked men; 
before the time serving cruelty of Pilate's 
court, and the illegal, ignominious death of 
the cross, opens not its mouth, and on the 
brow of Hattin opens it wide and pours forth 
streams and rivers of benediction, vivify and 
beatify generations yet unborn. 



40 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

"The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
Had he thy reason would he ship a nd play? 
Pleased to the last, he erops the flowery food, 
And lieks the hand just raised to shed his blood!' 

5. Humility. "Is not puffed up;" is not 
inflated, is not blown up. Humility is an in- 
gredient so delicate that it is hard to handle. 
It is the inimitable perfume of love. It is the 
fine silken fabric upon the maturing fruit, 
woven by the Creator's hand, so delicate that 
the gentlest hand with the finest needle, can- 
not touch it without breaking the tissue. 

Humility is the hush of the Holy Spirit 
in the heart. It is the Christ spoken stillness 
to the storm tossed soul. It is a sea of oil 
where the mind is never 'fretted nor vexed, 
nor irritated nor sore nor disappointed. ' It is 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 41 

the ocean calm, when an euroclydon is driv 
ing to destruction military armadas, and the 
commerce of nations on the surface of the 
waters. It is to be plunged into the abyss of 
God, and to dwell in the secret place of the 
Most High without a palpitating fear when 
all about us is swept by the simoon tempest 
of desolation and despair. 

6. Politeness. "Doth not behave itself 
unseemly. " a A man of fine manners shah 
pronounce your name with all the ornament 
that titles of nobility could ever add. " It is a 
sure sign of cheapness to see furniture so 
highly polished that the kind of wood cannot 
be detected — whether it is birch or ash or 
maple. It is true that a man may be as grace- 
ful as a seraph and at the same time as grace- 



42 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

less as satan. But it is just as true that much 
that passes for holiness, is not even homely 
holiness, but hard-headed uncouth rusticity. 
Politeness may not be polish, but a well fit- 
ting, well polished shoe, blameless broad- 
cloth and spotless linen; a modest modern 
made dress, a becoming hat, with tastey 
feathery furnishings, frequent sanitary ab- 
lutions, a moderate use of eau-de-cologne, 
and the sweet adjuncts of the toilet need 
never make holiness blush. Indeed you may 
dip your pen deep in the ink horn of scholar- 
ship and write in copious English; you may 
sit in a German Aerostat, discover and ex- 
plore new realms of thought; you may be the 
centre of the highest society and in the ver- 
satile conversation of the French be the ere- 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 43 

ative source of all true social intercourse; 
you may sweep the Spanish key board and 
Orpheus like charm birds and beasts and 
men and angels and at the same time be the 
embodiment of a character and conduct, the 
out- shining of the most seraphic saintliness. 

7. Unselfishness. "Seekethnother own/' 
and some one has added "rights." To change 
the figure for a moment. This is the pivotal 
point. This is the crisal stage. This is the 
key stone of the arch, without which the 
whole structure, tumbles into a detached, in- 
coherent mass of rubbish. This is the sun of 
the system, without which, all the concentric 
systems, dash themselves to pieces in a froz- 
en hell and rush with incalculable velocity in- 
to the abyss of darkness. It is the ingredient 



44 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

without which the life will be sour and dis- 
tasteful. The selfless life is the miracle of 
history. The selfless life is master of all the 
mysteries. The selfless life is the peerless 
phenomenon of philosophy. The selfless life 
is the Colossus of Calvary. The unselfing of 
self entails a battle, before which Ther- 
mopylae, and Marathon, Waterloo and Gettys- 
burg vanish into the obsolete and gives us a 
hero with the world, the flesh and the devil 
beneath his feet. Self-denial is one thing, to 
deny self is quite another. We may deny 
many things to self and yet self may sit all 
the while on the throne of a self inflated bub- 
ble. Many a testimony and life is worn out in 
belaboring efforts at self denunciation. It is 
not the denunciation, but the renunciation of 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 45 

self that settles the self life. Peter denied 
the Lord by the most superlative, express- 
ions, that to his ken there was no such a per- 
son as Jesus. To deny self is to ignore it, nay 
more, is to reckon ourselves dead to it and 
treat it as though it had no existence. The 
self centered life is the, "personal pronoun I 
extended perpendicularly and horizontally, 
till top wise and side wise, the whole of space 
and time is filled with it; no solid earth, no 
burning sun, no rolling orbs are left; a great 
illimitable, inresponsible ego becomes the 
sole occupant of all that is.' ' Even Socrates 
the martyr of philosophy was ego-centric. 
He did not bend, he did not bow, but his 
thoughts reverted to himself. "The first per- 
sonal pronoun is conspicuously prominent in 



46 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 



his famous apology. Socrates is in almost 
every sentence. He uses the pronoun "I" 
four hundred and thirty times, "me" one 
hundred and fifty one times, besides u my" 
and "myself" almost as many. But Stephen 
the martyr for the truth of the Holy Ghost, 
amid the shower of stones, hurled by demon- 
ized hate, triumphantly exclaims: "I see the 
glory of God and Jesus, standing on the right 
hand of God." And Paul the martyr of "the 
Mystery" in a storm of Roman rage, peals 
forth the stupendous statement: "Not I but 
Christ." 

There is a foe within the breast, 
The Christian well may fear; 

More subtle far than inbred sin, 
And to the heart more dear. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 47 

It is the power of selfish ness, 

That proud and wilful "I" 
And ere my Lord can dwell in me, 
My very self must die. 
8. Good temper. ' 'Is not provoked. " Is 
not marked by paroxysms. Is not fitful. Mr. 
Drummond says: "Temper is the vice of the 
virtuous" and gives a list of the elements 
that go to make up ill- temper. "Jealousy, 
anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-right- 
eousness, sulkiness, touchiness, dogged- 
ness. " A seething Vesuvius torn by the pent 
up flame, ready to burst forth in a lava tide 
of death upon all who would insinuate an 
offensive act to the self constituted autocrat. 

The life that has obtained this grace, has 
been through the shades, nay the dense dark 



48 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

ness of Gethsemane and under the treniend 
ous tonnage of that press has dropped the 
ruby jewelled bead of perspiring agony; it 
has passed along and crouched under the 
burden of the via dolorosa with Jesus; it has 
stood in Gabbatha like a lamb in the shambles 
before a blood thirsty mob and a time serv- 
ing, man fearing judicatory; it has been to 
Golgotha and amid the cyclonic storm, fanned 
by the black apostasy into incarnate fury, 
has been crucified with Christ; it has been 
"buried with Him, " and has felt the warm 
heart beat of the rising Christ and has come 
forth, mounting on the wings of resurrection 
life. 

The reason he is not ruffled and moved 
by little things is because he has stood in the 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 49 

serenest calm, by the Angel's side in the un- 
fettered euroclydon. The reason he is not 
overwhelmed by the tide of opposition, is be- 
cause he has been moulded into a mass of 
moral mightiness and like a Gibralter throws 
back the storm-lashed sea into the impotence 
of silvery spray. The love filled life stands in 
the sweet and serene sublimity of the triune 
God, majestic as the flinty rock of the eternal 
hills and tender and sweet as the tiniest 
flowers that adorn their brow. 

9. Thinketh no evil. Failing to distin- 
guish between things that differ, at this 
point, many earnest souls are surrounded by 
unaccountable difficulties. The holiest man 
passes a spot where once he saw an unhallow- 
ed picture, or heard an unsavory speech, and 



5C THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

the indistructible law of association repro- 
duces the scenes. The whole circumstance 
seizes upon him with fire tipped claws, and 
while his whole being recoils and shrinks as 
from a viper, he may involuntarily and irres- 
ponsibly think of evil. But thinking evil and 
thinking of it may be as far removed from 
each other as the East is from the West. 

10. "Rejoiceth not in Iniquity." In the 
closing five verses of the first chapter of 
Romans, Paul paints the picture of human 
history and in the starless back ground de- 
fines a Character that not only commits the 
nameless iniquities but actually takes de- 
light in those that do them. To one, into 
whose mind has been instilled the doctrine 
of total depravity, the above picture can 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 51 

scarcely be too highly colored, but the riddle 
that perplexes, is how the people of God can 
practice unholy habits and treat with stoica 
indifference the sinful conduct of wicked men 
We are asked over and over again: "Can a 
Christian sin?" Did you ever notice how Paul 
puts the question? "How can we that are 
dead to sin live any longer therein?" It is 
true a good man may fall, but it should be a 
surprising accident and ought to so blister 
and burn him that he would never repeat the 
same wrong. And the spiritual senses of 
God's people ought to be and may be so 
healthy, refined and sensitive, that instead of 
rejoicing at, or being indifferent to evil, the 
whole nature should abhor the very approach 
as did the sinless soul of our Saviour on the 



52 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

cross. 

11. "Rejoiceth in the truth." "Count it 
all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. " 
"Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say 
rejoice/' form the terminal notes on the key- 
board of Christian life. Mr. Spurgeon once 
wrote a letter to a friend in which he had put 
a piece of music of his own composing. The 
letters, making up the names of four acute 
diseases from which he suffered — rheuma- 
tism, lumbago, sciatica and gout formed the 
notes and a post script from the suffering 
saint said: "This tune is being played on my 
bones." In Ephesians 2: 10 we read "For we 
are his workmanship," literally, poem. Sin 
has taken the rythm out of the soul and 
thrown the whole creation into discordant 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 58 

chaos. Generation is prose, but in regener 
ation and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, 
the creative Artist writes poetry and the 
Holy Spirit puts it to music, whose rythmic 
harmony, touches the key board of the an 
gelic orchestra, till it bursts into diapason 
thunder ings of melody, whose returning 
waves of heavenly harmony transform the 
heaven-born soul into an Aeolian harp that 
responds to every thorn prick zephyr or hur 
ricane, in doxologies of delight. 

12. "Covers all things.' ' The root word 
is a roof and so to the oriental mind it does a 
two fold work. It covers all that is below and 
bears all that is above. Law is always look 
ing for our vices, love is always looking for 
our virtues. Law hunts up, love covers up 



54 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

Law will put the detective force of justice on 
the track of the wrong doer and, unceasingly 
follow him to the ends of the earth and mer- 
cilessly drag him to the place of trial and 
hurl him from the electrocutioners chair into 
a black eternity. Love will untiringly pursue 
the wayward boy till he is doubly dyed in the 
most unpardonable crime. When the uplifted 
hand of Nemesis is ready to descend with the 
unsheathed instrument of death, love bares 
her spotless breast to the sharp, soulless 
edge of justice and dies for the victim. 

When public opinion burns us at the stake, 
And covers us o'er with its sting: 

What a comfort to hide like a hawk driven dove 
JSeath the soft down love of a fond mothers wing 
13. "Believeth all things" and it might 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 55 

be scripturally added, "whatsoever the 
Father hath spoken unto us. " Faith must 
have a basis and that basis the word of God. 
"Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the 
word of God. " There is a false idea abroad 
that spiritual things belong to aerial heights 
and by a process of straining endeavor, they 
are distilled and become realities to the souL 
But, indeed, it is faith that is real. Faith is 
substantial. "Faith is the substance of things 
hoped for the proving of things not seen. " 
That "Love believeth all things" is a state- 
ment calculated to arrest the attention of the 
most devout, and intensely active children of 
God. "I will show thee my faith by my 
works. " If this be the test, how the multi- 
tudes who profess to love God stand con- 



56 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

demned before: "If ye love rue keep my com- 
mandments. " The unutterable groanings and 
heart rending cries of pagan and heathen 
millions have been memorializing and impor- 
tuning the heart of God for centuries and 
the Go of the Galilean, like a chime of bells 
has been pealing day and night" from the bel- 
fry of Revelation, to the Church of God: 
"Look ye," "Pray ye," "Give ye" and "Go ye 
into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
every creature." 

14. "Hopeth all things." Hope is the 
anchor of the soul. There is much that is call- 
ed truth, in art, architecture, poetry and 
sculpture. But the iron tooth of time and the 
disintegrating tendencies of chemical change 
will dissolve them like the bareless fabric of 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 57 

a dream. In a New England church, in a sea 
port town, a master hand had just given the 
last artistic touch to an emblematic anchor 
above the pulpit, and was standing back in 
the auditorium, admiring his best production 
An old time worn, weather beaten sailor, who 
had been in the deep, and who had seen the 
angry sea open its mouth like the jaws of 
death, and show its teeth, ready to crush and 
destroy the heaviest transatlantic steamer 
He looked for a moment at the beautiful 
anchor on the wall. Then like a sage and seer 
he remarked: -'It is pretty but it would 'nt be 
much good in a storm. " It is not enough to 
have a good anchor and good anchorage. The 
anchor must be anchored. The popularly ex- 
pressed hope, is almost hopelessly diluted 



58 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

with insecurity and lack of confidence. But 
the Bible hope is synonymous with confident 
expectation or assurance. Hope anchored in 
the riven side of the Rock of Ages, will se- 
cure the soul when the earthquake tread of, 
time's dissolution shall shake the material 
universe. 

15. Endureth all things. As the soul 
comes to the edge of this stupendous state- 
ment and looks down into its unfathomed 
abyss: As it throws out the line and plummet, 
in vain does the ear wait for the responding 
click that announces the bottom has been 
reached. What can it do but exclaim: "O the 
depths !" The electric winged mind sweeps 
the horizon of human history, scans the op- 
pressed and the oppressor from the first hu- 



THE LIFE OT LOVE. 59 

man hand, stained with the blood of a brother, 
to the climax tragedy of history — the im- 
maculate Son of God dying for the sin of the 
world. Then with eagle-eyed perspicacity 
takes a view of the last eighteen centuries 
much of whose history has been written in 
blood and Love untiring, unfermenting love 
has endured it all. Allow me once more to 
change the figure from the chemical to the 
mechanical. It is interesting to notice that 
the above category begins and ends with 
suffering or bearing. The Grand Trunk 
bridge, over Niagara's gorge is one of the 
most remarkable pieces of engineering skill. 
At a cost of about one million dollars, six 
million pounds of steel are so constructed, 
that a pyramid of engines, a mile high, could 



60 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

be borne on its broad shoulders and the com- 
mercial tonnage of two nations does not phase 
its herculean muscle. But let us think of 
"Love suffer eth long" and "Love endureth 
all things" as the arched bearers and all 
the other graces wrought steel supports, 
and the whole structure the incarnate pro- 
duct of the Master Builder and have we 
not a bridge of Colossal Christian Character, 
over which God can send the commerce of 
the heavenly country, to supply the ever 
deepening need, and satisfy the hunger of a 
sin famished world? Give me love, burning 
love and I will climb from law to law, through 
grace and glory to the place beside the 
throne, where angels sing and shine and al- 
ways do the will of God. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 61 

III. Continuity of Love. Never goes to 
shore. 6 'Love never fa iieth." In the commer- 
cial world and the exchanges of men, we es- 
timate the value of goods, by their powers of 
endurance. Prom, the gaudy colors of fashion 
to the most imperishable material in the 
world's throbbing traffic, the questions are 
asked: "Is it a fast color?" or "Will it wear?" 
Change is written on all we behold, in sea and 
earth and sky. "Limited" is indellibly carved 
upon all that is beneath the sun. Were this 
boasted earth of ours solid coal, we could put 
over a million of such earths in the sun and 
the volcanic flames and cyclones of fire rush- 
ing a hundred miles a second would consume 
them all in fifty centuries. 

When God was calling Abraham ages ago, 



62 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

a wind-wafted seed, hidden in a dry husky 
shell, was planted in a rich Californian valley 
and under the kind influence of heat and 
moisture sprang up. When the patriarch 
died it was a tender sapling. Three hundred 
years passed way and we hear the thunder 
ing steps of Moses and six hundred thousand 
people following an Emancipating God. 
through a crystal canal to the land of liberty 
and our tree is still reaching to heaven. Take 
a giant stride of five hundred years and we 
are walking with Solomon in all his glory be- 
fore Greece and Rome are born and the tree 
is still growing. A thousand years more and 
the miracle of the ages appears, the climax 
tragedy has been enacted, the triple alliance 
of Roman rage, Jewish jealousy and hellish 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 68 

hate, has been defeated at the new tomb in 
Joseph's garden and that tree still lives. And 
now almost nineteen centuries of marvellous 
history, have been swallowed up of time. 
America has been discovered and with a 
bound has sprang from a "terra incognita" 
to a foremost place among the nations. And 
that Calif ornian pine, ever green, towering a 
hundred feet higher than Washington's mon- 
ument, has been the contemporary of Abra- 
ham, and Moses and Caesar and Napoleon, 
and has flourished in perennial beauty, while 
a hundred and twenty generations of men 
have appeared and passed away. But there 
stands a day on the Calendar of time when 
all the foliaceous splendor of the earth shall 
pass away. The barren sand, of the great 



64 THE LIFE OP LOVE. 

Sahara is a vast ocean of fossil shells that 
once throbbed with living beings and whole 
ranges of mountains are made of the dead 
bodies of countless hosts of microscopic- 
creatures that found a burial place in the 
depths of the sea aed piled so high that in 
many places they came to the surface and 
made a basis for mighty empires. Passing 
away—but love never faileth. 

And so the mighty nations are like the 
drops in the bucket, or the ephemeral might 
of an army of grasshoppers. One stroke of 
an angel's wing and Assyrian hosts have 
passed into inglorious history. Persian civ- 
ilization with its sun worship has passed into 
starless night; Greek civilization with poetry, 
art and its multitudinous metal and marble 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 65 

gods, has fallen into the slough, of despair; 
Rome with her civilization of law and order, 
has been crushed by the accumulative weight 
of her own iniquity: and even Jewish civiliz- 
ation, though marked, by Shemitic rever- 
ence, Hamitic force and Japhetic culture, be- 
cause of her sapless piety and Christless 
creed has been dismembered and scattered 
like chaff to the four winds and trodden un- 
der the feet of all nations, but love, because 
it comes from the immutable God, intensely 
alive with His power, the outshining of His 
glory, radiant with His ineffable light, pul- 
sating with His truth, bearing the everlast- 
ing Gospel, pregnant with the gifts of heal- 
ing and invested with Omnific authority, 
shall never pass away. Persecutions bloody 



66 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

and relentless are waged. The fires of hate 
are kindled. Storms from the social, political 
and ecclesiastical sky, roll their thunders 
and unsheath their lightnings and with the 
howl of unfettered fiends empty their rage 
on the love born movement. But nothing im 
pedes it. Fire inspires it, persecution inten- 
sifies it, death does not alarm it. Love never 
faileth, Love shall never pass away. 

1. Prophecies shall fail. Not in the sense 
of being defeated, but shall literally fulfil the 
purpose for which they were God-breathed 
from the most microscopic minima to the 
most telescopic maxima and shall take their 
honored place in the archives of the eternal 
past. Let us use prophesies in the compre- 
hensive sense, of the entire Revelation of 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 67 

God to man. "The law of Moses is 700 years 
older than the jurisprudence of Lycurgus; 
it is 2000 years older than that of Justinian; 
it is 2,700 years older than the Magna Charta; 
it is 3,300 years older than the code of Na- 
poleon and almost as many years older than 
the Constitution of the United States/' Out 
of the Decalogue has sprung all the stately 
palaces of justice and legislative halls of the 
centuries. Prom it has come, homes of mercy, 
hospitals, jails and all the military magazines 
of defensive power, steel coated hosts of our 
standing armies and it supplies the fuel that 
drives the armadas of war and hurls the pro- 
jectiles of destruction against pagan and anti- 
Christian cruelty and throws open the her- 
metically sealed gates, that the Gospel may 



68 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

be preached to all nations. 

But law shall be raised to its highest 
potentiality in love; the psalms shall dissolve 
in the harmonies of heaven; prophecy shall 
be fulfilled in the noonday blaze of historic 
reality; the Gospels and Epistles, that merci- 
fully veil the insufferable splendor of the 
Saviour, shall be rent in twain like the veil of 
the temple and the weeping Revelator with 
all the blood washed throng shall realize the 
apocalyptic vision and shall be "before the 
throne of God, and serve Him day and night 
in His temple; and He that sitteth on the thro- 
ne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger 
no more, neither thirst any more; neither 
shall the sun light on them nor any heat. For 
the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 69 

shall feed them and shall lead them unto liv- 
ing fountains of water; and God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes. " 

2. Tongues shall cease. The epistle of 
James has been called, "that Epistle of 
straw. " But a critical examination of that an- 
alysis of the tongue leads us to the unanswer- 
able conclusion that it was written by a pen 
dipped in the ink horn of inspiration. The 
victory over the tongue is the inspired proof 
and definition of the perfect man. "If any 
man offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
man and able also to bridle the whole body/* 
The unregenerate tongue is a merciless ty- 
rant, inflamable, iniquitous, infectious, infer- 
nal, inconsistent, incorrigible and incurable. 
But the other tongue, the tongue of the new 



70 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

man anointed with the Holy Spirit, tempered 
by the Pentecostal fire may melt and mould, 
masses of men and like the pen of a . ready 
writer, write history that shall be read in the 
Chronicles of Eternity. 

How easy it is to make an impression! 
Science tells us that the little bird that 
hopped upon the plastic earth ages ago, left 
a track that can be seen to-day in the solid 
stone. And the fern that fell from its stock 
and was pressed by the Virgin feet of our 
Edenic Mother, may be traced in all its veins 
and threads, in the slate and quarried coal of 
our deep mineral deposits. And so the tongue 
may heedlessly scatter words as lavishly as 
the falling of the autumn leaves, but all the 
words spoken are making impressions on the 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 71 

sensitive plate of the soul, that shall outlive 
the tongue and the tongues of all time — im- 
pressions that shall remain when the hills 
shall melt like wax and this world is dis- 
solved in the final fire. "But whether there 
be tongues, they shall cease." 

3. Knowledge shall pass away. It is es- 
timated that not one book out of a thousand 
lives five years, and only one out of twenty 
thousand survives a century. Man thinks he 
has etched the hieroglyphs of human history 
imperishably in stone, but the upper and 
nether stones of the slowly grinding "mill of 
the gods" and the irresistible march of chem- 
ical change are dissolving and erasing them. 
Egypt may boast of her Heliopolis and her 
Alexandrian libraries. Athens may immor- 



72 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

talize her Academy. Rome her Forum. 
France under the lustre of vari-colored elec- 
tric light may be proud of her S.or bonne. 
Germany- the mistress of the air, may sit in 
her Heidelberg and drink from the golden 
chalice of high thought. England with her 
Oxford may point to a galaxy of brilliants 
whose names adorn her memories. And 
America with her Harvard may challenge the 
sun to go down upon the domain of her 
glory. But hark! "Whether there be knowl- 
edge, it shall vanish away." But love is 
marching on, over the ruins of human wis- 
dom and folly, ever forward and onward, 
spreading silently its heavenly blessings 
from generation to generation and from coun- 
try to country to the ends of the earth. It can 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 78 

never die; it will never see the decrepitude of 
old age; but like its Divine Author, it will 
live in the unfading freshness of self renew 
ing youth and the unbroken vigor of man- 
hood, to the .end of time and shall throb for- 
ever in the heart of God. 

"Love burn and burn within my heart" 

Unquenched by night and day: 
0 thou consuming love of God, 
Burn all the dross away. 
IV. Consummation of Love. 

"For now we see through a glass darkly 
but then face to face; now I know in part: 
but then shall I know even as also I am 
known.' ' 

1. Faith. "Now abideth faith.' ' The wri- 
ter of the Hebrews has given us a condensed 



74 THE LIFE OF LOVE, 

epitome of this first of the triad of graces- 
and in a panoramic vision gives an inventory 
of the exploits of the heroes and heroines of 
faith. One is awed as he walks through the 
dim, indeed dark avenues of the catacombs 
and communes with the dead. He is filled 
with wondering admiration as he walks 
through the art galleries of master minds. 
But how shall finite mind and stammering 
tongue, describe the emotions of rapture as 
we visit the "Westminister Abbey of the Old 
Testament" or better the Counsel Chamber 
of Faith. Let us pay a visit to those sacred 
halls and get a glimpse of this Cabinet of 
Bible Celebrities. 

Abel is the sacrifice of faith. Enoch is the 
walk of faith and demonstrates how holy men 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 75 

and women of all time, may have unbroken 
fellowship and walk with God on the "high- 
way of holiness. " Noah is faith manifested 
in the prophetic vision of things, not seen as 
yet, working and preparing an ark for the 
salvation of a remnant, from a judgment, 
that was treated by the ungodly world as a 
nocturnal hallucination. Abraham is the ven- 
ture of faith, and the Columbus-like daring 
that transforms the "Ne plus ultra" of a self 
centred time, into the "plus ultra" on the 
Golden Gates of promise, and "Not knowing. " 
But though "Not knowing'' keeps the deck, 
'And sails through darkness, Ah! that night, 

Of all dark nights, and then a speck' 9 
A star! A star! A star! A star! 

It proved to he but Israel's daivn: 



76 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

"Re gaumed a world; he gave that world 
Its grandest lesson: On and on/ 9 
Sara is parturiating faith that sees a 
numberless posterity in the promises of God. 
Isaac is the fruitage of faith and a prophetic 
promise of a time when Jesus ahall meet His 
bride in eternal wedlock. Jacob is faith un- 
dergoing the most heroic treatment, and com- 
ing forth from the severest discipline, a 
prince to prevail with God. Joseph is perse- 
vering faith, going through the pit of Dothan, 
tossing on the dessert ship of commerce, 
passing like an untarnished sun beam, 
through the malarial atmosphere of Poti- 
pher's house, praying and praising for years 
in an Egyptian dungeon, and in glorious tri- 
umph leaping to the throne of the Pharaohs. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 77 

Moses is the destiny of faith. 4 'Little could 
Pharaoh and his nobles have thought when 
they saw the handsome face of the Hebrew 
child, and remarked his progress in learning, 
what 'humiliation awaited Egypt at his hands. 
Little could the priests have dreamt when 
they saw his aptness for learning and how 
readily he mastered the treasures of their 
Hermetic or Sacred Books, that his fingers, 
were one day to write out a system of laws 
and government, that would be admired and 
honored thousands of years, after theirs 
should Tiave perished. Little could they have 
supposed, as they taught him to read and 
write the mysterious letters on tomb, temple 
and obelisk, intended to immortalize the 
mighty achievements of Egypt, that ages af - 



78 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

ter those achievements should have been for- 
gotten, the deeds and words of that Hebrew 
boy would be fresh and clear, in the knowl- 
edge of all the nations of the civilized world 
as if they had been done and spoken but yes- 
terday by their side." " And what shall I 
more say? for the time would fail me to tell of 
Gideon and of Barak and of Sampson and of 
Jephthae, of David also and Samuel and of 
the prophets, who through faith subdued 
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained 
promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 
Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the 
edge of the sword, out of weakness were 
made strong, waxed valient in fight and 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens. " 

2. Hope. Hope is the prot evangelium of 



THE LIFE OP LOVE. 79 

history. When sin with its blighting, devas- 
tating, desolating train invaded the pristine 
purity of Edenic blessedness, death and the 
densest darkness, usurped the throne of life 
and light, but the white winged dove of hope 
appears in the thickening darkness, and 
"The seed of the woman shall bruise the 
head of the serpent," put a bright star of 
promise on the black back ground of awful 
night. When the intoxicated passions of the 
Antedeluvian age, provoked [the outpouring 
of the wrath of God; As the unlocked deep 
and the unsealed heavens, met in dual al- 
liance and the justice and judgment of God, 
lashed a shoreless sea into incarnate fury 
and when the lone craft of the celestial Line, 
moved with the majesty of the Galilean upon 



80 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

the stormy sea, the bird of hope, announced 
with a leaf -'pluckt off" that a new world and 
a brighter day were just at hand. When God 
had separated a people for Himself and Is 
rael had begun her eventful history; When 
she sighed in Egyptian bondage and sung an 
emancipation song; when she had flourished 
in the Land of Canaan and risen to the zenith 
of her glory, under the- sceptre of Solomon; 
then when she had once more lapsed and 
hung her harps on the willows, in the Captiv- 
ity of Babylon, still the messenger of* hope, 
hovered over her, untiringly flew above the 
threatening night and lighted upon the Babe 
of Bethlehem. And yet again, eighteen hun- 
dred years have rolled into the past, and in 
the face of a gigantic civilization and a gor- 



THE LIFE OF 1 LOVE, 81 

geous culture, the white silvery clouds are 
turning to crimson, indeed the blaze and 
bloom of this "beautiful age" is deepening in- 
to blackness. The circumcised ear can hear 
the indignant thunders and the Christ- touch 
ed eye can see the fire tipped pen of the lur- 
id lightning writing on the inky scroll, in 
dellibly etching the doom of all human efforts 
for the regeneration and redemption of the 
world. But the "Blessed Hope" beside the 
throne, blows a blast through the silver trum 
pet: "Behold He cometh. " 

3. Love. "The greatest -of these is love/' 
"Faith looks back to the cross, Hope looks 
forward to the coming and Love spans the 
space between." "Faith brings us to Christ, 
hope anchors us in Christ and love makes us 



82 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

like Christ. In the astral world there are 
seven great systems. The Satellite with its 
little centre, around which it revolves. Then 
the Planetary, which, in turn becomes the 
larger centre for the lower system. Above 
this the Solar with our blazing ball of light 
around which the lesser systems sweep with 
incalculable velocity. Farther off in space, 
shines the Group system, the attracting cen- 
tre around wiiich a quartette of systems 
gravitate. Still deeper in the planisphere 
the Cluster Group holds the reins as the sans 
of light go phaetonizing along the highway of 
insufferable lustre. Away in the solitudes of 
immensity, the Nebular domain, plays a 
4 'grand march" while six legions of created 
hosts with solemn step and exquisite har- 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 83 

mony, march around the central city and 
habitation of God, as sentinels, guarding the 
inheritance of the redeemed. Once more, be- 
yond the intelligent gaze of the strongest sky 
piercing instrument, is the Universe system. 
What is it? Who can tell? It may be the ab- 
solute and. indefinable centre. It may be the 
Capital of the Universe. It may be the pal- 
acial residence of God. It may be the home 
of the soul. Prom that uncreated and inex- 
haustible fount of life and light, have come 
the system sown fields of the eternities and 
the myriad forms of life, mortal and immor- 
tal, that live and move and have their being 
in God. 

But here we have three great systems in 
the grand climax of this glory crowned Al- 



84 THE I JFB OF LOVE. 

pine Subject. Faith with its star-decked 
firmament of ransomed souls that sparkle 
with the brightness of immortality, revolve 
around the cross of Calvary and sing: 
" In the cross of Christ I glory, 

Towering o'er th e wrecks of time; 
Ml the light of sacred story, 

Gathers round its head sublime. 
This system, in turn revolves about the 
system of Hope. An evangelized earth, a sep 
arated Church, without spot or wrinkle, 
transparent as the transfiguration and trans 
lucent as the Risen Christ, and Israel, — no 
more a wandering world, but restored to her 
place shall circle around the central* Alcyone 
the Coming of the Lord. But Love is the 
Universe System and centre of all. Here we 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 85 

cannot be charged with exaggerated hyper- 
bole. Here there is room for the largest soul. 
Let us give the mind the wings of the wildest 
imagination, and fly like the light, across the 
seas of oceanic contemplation, and view the 
vast illimitable whole, and then conceive 
God, infinitely above and beyond it all. The 
God who willed into being and upholds by 
His power the inestima ble weight of the Uni- 
verse. Who lights the torch of reason and 
whose image is but dimly mirrored in the 
race of man. O tremendous truths that toss 
and torment the finite mind! But when we 
meditate on His love, overflowing in Christ, 
born in a manger, chased for three and thirty 
years, by the sleuth hounds of malignant 
hate, atoning for sin on the cross, drinking 



86 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

the quintessence of human guilt. When we 
gaze on the tragedy of time and see the -pal- 
ing sun, the arested face of the Father; when 
we hear the cry, the eternal heart ache, 
bursting into the wail: "My God, my God, 
why hast Thou forsaken me?"; As we, behold 
the dying God man, hear the earthquake, see 
the rending rocks and hear the demon hosts, 
in unholy exultation; When we see Him drain 
the cup of death to the bitterest dregs and 
dash it to pieces on the rocks of Golgotha; 
When we see the Conqueror, bowing to the 
awful burden, facing .the phalanxes of death, 
breaking their ranks, like the heroes of David, 
leaping from the cross, in His undying spirit, 
invading the Hadean regions, and coming 
forth in the glad Easter morning, triumph- 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 87 

antly dragging, death and the grave as cap- 
tives, in His train; When with wondering rap- 
ture we see the Victor on Olivet mounting 
the triumphal car and rolling the clouds as 
the dust under the wheels of the ascending 
chariot and in visions of faith get a foretaste 
of our Lord and Saviour, laying down the 
finished work of atoning love at His Father's 
feet and hear the heavenly orchestra sing: 
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to re- 
ceive power and riches and wisdom, and 
strength and honor and blessing," shall we 
not exclaim; "That we might comprehend 
with all saints, what is the breadth, and 
length and depth and height of love. " "The 
greatest of these is love. " 



88 THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

" When faith shall yield her golden hey, 
And we by knowledge elimb, 

Tt*uth/s capitol, love's fame shall shoot 
Fresh buds through endless time" 

When hope shall full fruition find, 

And never more return; 
As age on age shall roll away 

Love's light shall ever bum. 

Love brings a gift to sinful man, 
The priee no tongue can tell; 

It lifts the fallen and forlorn 
From sin and death and hell. 

Love comes from high to low estate, 

To bring angelic fire; 
"Aeolic songs to modulate. 

To the arch angels lyre." 

i( Love builds a monument her own," 
More lasting far than brass; 



LofC. 



THE LIFE OF LOVE. 

The (indent pyramids in stone 
"In height it doth surpass." 

"Rain cannot sap nor driving blast" 

Dissolve its solid base; 
"Nor countless ages rolling past, 

Its symmetry deface" 

Wl%en moon and stars forget to shine. 

And fiery sun shall die; 
Love's monument of burnished gold. 

Shall pierce a cloudless shy. 

When groaning nature eveimore, 
Is saved from satan's thrall; 

Then Christ shall give the hingdom 
And Love be all in all. 

To Faith and Hope and Love, 

Three obelisks [shall rise; 
Their base a ransomed universe, 

Their apex in the shies. 



Gems by Rev. Walter BusselL 



Law deals with conduct; grace with 
character. Golden character will always en- 
sure, golden conduct. 



It is not new Revelations we need but a 
Spirit illumination of the Old Revelation. 



The Creeds were never intended to carve 



GEMS. 91 

u Ne plus ultra' 9 but "Plus ultra" on 
the Golden Gates of uncrossed seas and un- 
discovered continents of truth. 



God either coerces or constrains His 
people to come out of the world; He coaxed 
Abraham, but burned Lot out . 



It is better to be a man God believes in 
than a man that believes in God . 



Your sins will take you if you do not take 
them to judgment. 

The Cross is the colossal crisis of history : 
it is offensive to the sinner and defensive to 
the saint. 



92 GEMS. 

You can never settle down in Christ till 
you settle up with God. 



Every time an anointed minister goes in- 
to the pulpit, for some soul, the Judgment 
seat is set. 



Multitudes throng Jesus, that never 
touch Him; it is the touch of faith that brings 
life and health from the medicated hem. 



The Word without the fire has filled the 
Church with formalism, the fire without the 
Word has threatened her with fanaticism. 



If you want to find a crow, sow corn; if 
an eagle throw out carrion: and if you want 



GEMS. 93 

to find the Spirit born soul, sow the Word of 
God. 



The bullet of the savage is revolutionary ; 
the ballot of the sage is reformatory, but the 
Blood of the Saviour is transf ormatory. 



Does Christian service chafe? A yoke 
well made, and well put on a well behaved ox 
never hurts the ox. 



Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth 

up. 



It takes no anointing, but flinty grit to 
denounce; but a Christ filled life finds it easy 
to renounce. 



94 GEMS. 

God created man on the sixth day and 
gave him a day of rest before setting him to 
keep and trim the garden; so, when He cre- 
ates the New Man in Christ Jesus, He gives 
him the rest of faith, and then says: 4 'Go, 
work in my vineyard. " 



God is too great for our heads to explain, 
but not for our hearts to experience. 



HIS WILL IS BEST. 



"He doeth all things well, " 

Though dark the night and drear: 
No path is hopeless or forlorn, 

His presence makes it clear. 

"He doeth all things well/' 
Though treading desert sand; 

The fiery pillar guides the way, 
To Canaan's happy land. 



"He doeth all things weU, " 
Though fires intenser burn; 

He walks amid the scorching flame, 
To comfort those who mourn. 

"He doeth all things well, " 
Though laid on bed of pain; 

This test of faith shall surely bring, 
To us, eternal gain. 

"He doeth aU things well," 
Though tossed upon the sea; 

There's one with us upon the bark, 
Who stilled proud Galilee. 

"He doeth all things well" 

Whatever may betide; 
We hear the blessed Master say: 

We'll cross to yonder side. 



"He doeth all things well," 
Though spoken now in sorrow; 

But hope beholds the coming dawn. 
Of beautiful to-morrow. 

"He doeth all things well,'' 
His name we still shall laud; 

For on the clouds of inky hue, 
We see the bow of God. 

"He doeth all things well, " 

Our spirits are at rest; 
God holds the keys of all unknown, 

And what He does is best. 



3 an ° 17 S901 



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52 




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